Table from SpoutBlog: http://blog.spout.com/2008/01/17/sundance-2008-deals/

Film Title	Buyer	Rights	Info
American Teen link	Paramount Vantage	Worldwide @ $1 million	AThompson
Baghead link	Sony Classic	North America	indieWIRE
Ballast link	Celluloid Dreams	All Non-U.S.	indieWIRE
The Black List link	HBO	Domestic TV, Oscar qualifying	indieWIRE
Choke link	Fox Searchlight	Most world @ $5 mil	Variety
CSNY Déjà Vu link	Fortissimo	Worldwide Theatrical	indieWIRE
Derek link	Film Sales Co.	US theatrical/ World sales	indieWIRE
Frozen River link	Sony Classic	North America: under $1 million	Rueters
Hamlet 2 link	Focus	Worldwide @ $10 mil	Variety
Henry Poole is Here link	Overture	US @ $3.5 mil	Variety
Kicking It link	ESPN	Worldwide TV/Digital	indieWIRE
Roman Polanski link	HBO	Domestic/Oscar qualifying	AThompson
Roman Polanski link	Weinstein	Internat (Non-US, Canada); UKTV	indieWIRE
Time Crimes link	United Artists	Remake	Variety
Traces of the Trade link	PBS POV	Domestic TV	indieWIRE
The Wave link	Alliance/Momentum...	Canada/UK/Spain	indieWIRE
Up the Yangtze link	Zeitgeist	Theatrical	indieWIRE

 

Deal Talk Update: Jan 25th HollywoodReporter
PARK CITY -- The 2008 Sundance Film Festival was a study in playing against type -- and hype.

Several phenomena taken as gospel for this year's festival and the indie world in general were flipped on their ear. Many highly touted films were left without buyers, who seemed especially immune to the lure of name stars.

Small films that received little attention from buyers coming in often popped at the fest, including a documentary about Roman Polanski bought by HBO/the Weinstein Co. and a single-mother drama, "Frozen River," bought by Sony Pictures Classics for mid-six figures. On Thursday, a number of distributors also were circling the Brian Cox prison-break drama "The Escapist."

In the latest example of a Park City film without marquee names getting a big deal, Anchor Bay Entertainment on Thursday picked up domestic distribution rights to Jon Knautz's horror comedy "Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer" in a mid-six-figure deal with a theatrical commitment.

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The film premiered at the nearby Slamdance Film Festival. It features Robert Englund ("Nightmare on Elm Street") in the story of a teen (producer-star Trevor Matthews) haunted by the murder of his parents who accidentally awakens an ancient evil. The deal was negotiated by Shaun Redick and Nate Bolotin of the Collective with Anchor Bay's Mark Ward.

Magnolia Pictures was the front-runner to acquire North American rights to Dennis Dortch's look at black sexuality, "Good Day to Be Black & Sexy," which premiered at the Prospector Square theater under the radar of many buyers. Attorney Steven C. Beer is repping sales of the film.

Meanwhile, a number of much-hyped films (save for the high school satire "Hamlet 2") failed to draw the expected interest.

Deal Talk Update: Jan 24th: Variety

Three buyers were courting the Duplass brothers' relationship-themed comedy "Baghead," with another three possibly coming to the table. The Weinstein Co. circled the Russian-language fairy tale "Mermaid," but no deal had been inked by early evening.

The ensemble wine country drama "Bottle Shock," which unspooled nearly a week ago, fielded offers, as buyers were in play for Stacy Peralta's Crips and Bloods documentary.

Multiple buyers spent the day circling the feel-good drama "Phoebe in Wonderland" and the Spanish-language CG-laden "Sleep Dealer," which had IFC in the hunt.

from NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/23/movies/23sund.html?_r=1&8dpc&oref=slogin

Deals Are Made at Sundance

PARK CITY, Utah — And on the fifth night, the wallets opened.

After a weekend marked by too many downbeat dramas and comedies-in-name-only, the Sundance Film Festival’s flock of film buyers finally began seeing movies they could take to the multiplexes — and it was a religious experience.

Just after midnight Tuesday, “Henry Poole Is Here,” Mark Pellington’s light-hearted tale of a terminally ill man (Luke Wilson), his troubled neighbors and a stain on his stucco wall that looks to them like the face of Christ, sold to Overture Films, one of the new movie distributors clamoring for attention and movies.

The price paid was a minimum guarantee of $3.5 million for the rights to release the movie in the United States, three people close to the negotiations said, making it the first major deal of the festival. Overture beat out Warner Independent Pictures and Focus Features, one person involved said.

That agreement came hours after what was perhaps the most rousing premiere of the festival, that of “Hamlet 2,” a bawdy romp starring Steve Coogan as a failed actor turned pathetic high-school drama teacher who stages a musical sequel to “Hamlet,” with a “sexy Jesus” Christ in a starring role.

“Ten minutes after the screening ended, I had e-mails from distributors saying, ‘I must have that film’ and ‘Name your price,’ ” said Micah Green of the Creative Artists Agency, the film’s sales representative.

After a feverish auction, Focus Features emerged at about 3 a.m. the winning bidder for “Hamlet 2” with a price of $10 million – just shy of the Sundance record $10.5 million paid for “Little Miss Sunshine” in 2006 – edging out Fox Searchlight, the Weinstein Company, Lionsgate, Summit, and Warner Independent, according to two people close to the talks. The “to buy or not to buy” questions surrounding other films, meanwhile, seemed to be resolving themselves quickly.

For one example, at around 5 a.m. Tuesday Fox Searchlight agreed to pay a mid-seven-figure price for “Choke,” Clark Gregg’s adaptation of the Chuck Palahniuk novel. The film stars Sam Rockwell as a sex-addicted con man (he forces himself to choke in fancy restaurants), Anjelica Huston as his deranged, hospitalized mother, and Kelly McDonald as her doctor. The United Talent Agency represented the film, which also has religious overtones: Ms. Huston’s character believes her fatherless son is the Second Coming.

One of the festival’s overarching themes has been hope and optimism, as is most evident in films about people facing down death, including “Henry Poole Is Here” and Amy Redford’s drama “The Guitar” (which was less well received in its Friday opening).

In Mr. Pellington’s comedy-drama, written by Albert Torres and produced by Lakeshore Entertainment, Adriana Barraza (“Babel”) plays a woman whose glimpse of the holy visage in a skeptical neighbor’s water-stained stucco wall — complete with tears of blood — threatens to turn his back yard into a suburban Lourdes. All the principal characters are coping with loss of one kind or another (already realized, or looming just ahead) — appropriately enough, since Mr. Pellington decided to make the film while grieving over his own wife’s death in 2004.

Chris McGurk, chief executive of Overture, said he sent an e-mail message to Tom Rosenberg, the head of Lakeshore, from his seat in the theater in the middle of the premiere to say he wanted “Henry Poole.”

In a phone interview, he said that both believers and nonbelievers could find the film validating. “It’s much more than a movie about religion,” he said. “Whether you subscribe to a certain faith or not, it’s a movie you can hook into.”

By contrast, “Hamlet 2,” even as it made sure to offend Christians, gays, Latinos, Jews, the A.C.L.U., and one of its lead actresses (Elisabeth Shue), also managed to subvert the festival’s running theme of death-defying optimism. The film, whose producer is Eric Eisner (son of Michael, the former Disney chief), was one of those Cinderella stories at Sundance: Submitted after the festival had announced its line-up in November, still unfinished, it was absent from the printed festival guides. “The buyers knew we rushed a cut,” said Mr. Green, the film’s agent. “We projected digitally. The film’s really not done — we weren’t done editing, we just stopped to have something to show.”

As acquisition teams from Focus, Fox Searchlight, Lionsgate, Miramax and the Weinstein Company, among others, left the screening to huddle and come up with offers, the non-buying audience hung around for a quick question-and-answer session with Andrew Fleming, the director of “Hamlet 2,” and several members of his cast.

Mr. Fleming said he and his writing partner, Pam Brady (a veteran “South Park” writer), had been working on the script for five years, but the idea of a “Hamlet” sequel was much more recent, and the actual play-within-the-movie was written on deadline. “It was this kind of panicked, last-minute thing — ‘let’s write some songs and put on a show,’ ” Mr. Fleming said.

In the movie Ms. Shue plays herself, oddly enough — or a version of herself that could be so smitten by Mr. Coogan that she’d lick his face (as she did again onstage, for good measure). Why’d she take the role? “I just got the script and it said, ‘A famous actress who’s a has-been, lives in Tucson and is a nurse,’ ” she said. “I had to do it.”

 

from Backstage.com: http://www.backstage.com/bso/news_reviews/la/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003699870

Caution Signs at Sundance
January 22, 2008
By Gregg Goldstein and Steven Zeitchik
PARK CITY -- With buyers exercising caution at Sundance, a documentary about the trials of being a teenager offered the most suspenseful dealmaking plotline.

In a protracted negotiation for a sought-after title, bidders continued to circle "American Teen," Nanette Burstein's narrative-driven docu that bowed strongly during the weekend but as of Monday afternoon had not completed a sale.

The A&E Indie Films production examines high school seniors at a school in Warsaw, Ind., in the manner of previous teen-themed hits like "The Breakfast Club." A cheerleader, hipster, jock and band geek are all featured in a film one insider dubbed "a smarter 'Laguna Beach.' "

In the wake of the blockbuster success of Fox Searchlight's "Juno," a fictional account of a resolute and colorful teenager, buyers were showing keen interest in "Teen."

Searchlight made an early play for the film Saturday, then decided to drop out at the $1 million-$2 million mark. Paramount Vantage also was showing strong interest as buyers met Sunday with sellers CAA and Cinetic.

But by Monday, Sony Pictures Classics, which had entered the mix, was said to have the inside track, though the sellers were still weighing an offer from Vantage.

Elsewhere -- save for some smaller buys like PBS' pickup of the slave trade docu "Traces of the Trade: Stories From the Deep North" for its "POV" series -- buyers and sellers seemed to be locked in a standoff.

A quartet of prestige films that debuted Sunday attracted interest but no immediate top-level bids.

They included the dark literary drama "Incendiary," starring Ewan McGregor; Rawson Marshall Thurber's "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh," based on the early novel by Michael Chabon; the Elle Fanning and Felicity Huffman family drama "Phoebe in Wonderland"; and Paul Schneider's quirky tale of hucksters and science "Pretty Bird."

Attention shifted to Andrew Fleming's "Hamlet 2," set for a Monday night screening, in hopes that it might jumpstart the sales action.

The film, which stars Steve Coogan as a high school drama teacher who attempts to stage a musical sequel to Shakespeare's play, was set for an evening screening at the Library.

Two of the weekend's high-profile debuts appear to have been temporarily left by the wayside.

While a handful of buyers continued to eye "The Wackness," they were waiting for the price to drop on the coming-of-age stoner comedy.

There also were predictions that Barry Levinson's "What Just Happened?" will end up with a deal thanks to its all-star cast, but the chances for the most expensive film of the fest to make a record sale were dwindling.

The slow market is being attributed to a resistance to the prices being asked and an array of films that present marketing challenges.

One other factor affecting salesis the DGA settlement with the AMPTP on the eve of the fest, which raised hopes for an end to the WGA strike and the possibility of averting a SAG strike. Specialty divisions of the Hollywood studios are breathing more easily about potential labor-related holes in their upcoming schedules.

While they are holding onto their wallets, a number of distributors are using the fest to launch films they are readying for release.

Searchlight debuted Stephen Walker's docu "Young at Heart," which follows a senior-citizen choir that sings rock covers, by screening it in several Utah cities and also bringing members of the chorus to Sundance.

Miramax launched "Smart People," the Michael London-produced academia dramedy, following up with a glitzy dinner Sunday.

On Monday night, the Weinstein Co. took the wraps off "Where in the World Is Osama?" Morgan Spurlock's one-man quest to track down the terrorist leader.  

 

from indeiWIRE: http://www.indiewire.com/ots/2008/01/park_city_08_di_1.html

Park City coverage sponsored by BE KIND REWIND.

Way back in October, sellers began speculating that with the looming Writer's Guild strike, this year's Sundance Film Festival would see booming business. For months, buyers, sellers, and journalists set the stage: narrative films would catch fire as the strike continued and docs would face tough times in the wake of a bad year at the box office. At Sundance Film Festival industry parties on Monday, a number of buyers and sellers alike seemed genuinely surprised that Sundance '08 hasn't followed the approved script and a narrower roster of narrative films than expected were in play by the festival's midpoint. But, late Monday, many seemed confident that deals would start to happen and sure enough today, three new narrative features that screened for the first time on Monday were quickly snapped up in a day that saw about $18 million in deals.

Earlier today, the first major narrative acquisitions of the festival emerged with the immediate news of Focus Features deal for Andrew Fleming's "Hamlet 2," a late addition to the Sundance lineup that was picked up just hours after its world premiere in a $10 million deal brokered by CAA. It is the biggest acquisition to hit Sundance since "Little Miss Sunshine" was acquired by Fox Searchlight two years ago on the first Saturday of the festival.

Overture Films subsequently announced a $3 million deal for Mark Pellington's "Henry Poole is Here" (acquiring the film from Lakeshore) and Searchlight made a deal with UTA to acquire Clark Gregg's "Choke."

The deals unveiled today trumped anticipated pacts for early fest debuts including Christine Jeffs' "Sunshine Cleaning" and Jonathan Levine's "The Whackness," both of which have been expected to sell out of Sundance but remain on the market. Meanwhile, many insiders are wondering what will happen with the high-profile "What Just Happened?" Audiences and sellers alike have been asking that question since the $20 million Barry Levinson film screened. Word spread quickly on the party circuit the night of the showing that the movie was a dud. Other films seen as sure-fire acquisitions coming into the festival, such as Brad Anderson's "Transssiberian" and Sean McGinly's "The Great Buck Howard," have yet to score distribution.

Some, however were starting to wonder had those three debuting films acquired today been scheduled to screen on the first or second day of the festival, would there be so much anxiety about the marketplace at Sundance this year?

"What we're seeing is major apprehension about the marketability of films and last night, studios saw three films that they love and saw as marketable," explained Rich Klubeck of United Talent Agency, who brokered the "Choke" deal with Fox Searchlight. "It has more to do with the general state of how challenging marketing films is. It is hard to get a film noticed in the marketplace. Because expectations were so high for this year, when many films didn't perform, people got really scared."

The slow burn of this year's Sundance market and the apparent initial rejection of certain high-profile star-driven movies by buyers raised an important warning to the sales community, noted a number of buyers surveyed in the past day by indieWIRE. Essentially ignored amidst all of the prognostication leading up to Sundance were the films themselves. Now, amidst a flurry of hand-wringing in the media, many Sundance Film Festival attendees are taking a step back. The clear message: Some films clearly weren't meeting buyer's quality standards, other were apparently priced too high, and many of the good films are simply considered too small and hard to market. All three answers illuminate the shifting state of the independent and specialty film business.

"There wasn't the film or films that caused enough of a passion to really go for it," noted Picturehouse president Bob Berney, who explained that for the second Sundance in a row, he has set the bar higher for the films he acquires for his company. "Its pretty high because its so expensive to market the films and its so competitive. You don't want to come back and have buyers remorse." But, he added that even though he is leaving the festival on Wednesday, Picturehouse may still make a play for a festival title.

"They are not selling because maybe the expectations are too high and people are saying, 'I'll wait' and that's just had an odd effect'," explained Submarine's Josh Braun, chatting with indieWIRE at the Picturehouse party on Monday afternoon. "I do think that in the end its all about responding to a great film."

"I think people are being cautious because the tables have turned in the sense that are a lot of choices out there," noted Arianna Bocco, head of acquisitions for IFC Films, chatting during Monday night's crowded Cinetic Media, "But, the movies have to meet the quality requirements."

"I also think that the movies will sell," Bocco added, "Just not this week." You have to be able to watch the movies and then take the time to see who is the right company...when I hear some of the prices that are being bandied about for 'American Teen', its the same thing." Reiterating, Bocco noted, "It never goes away, the altitude every year goes to people's heads."

Bocco spoke with indieWIRE near where Cinetic Media's John Sloss had been huddled in a meeting with A&E's Molly Thompson and filmmaker Nanette Burstein, upstairs at Zoom during the annual Cinetic party where most guests were drinking and dancing. As of this evening (Tuesday), the film still remained on the market with sellers saying a deal is still coming together. Sony Pictures Classics is seen as as front-runner to make a deal.

"If people felt that they could make money with the movie, there would be a frenzy, but the movies are pretty challenging i think," added Jonathan Sehring, the head of IFC Entertainment, standing alongside Bocco at the party. "A lot of the studios would rather not take a chance, than take a chance on a movie that they are not going to make money on."

"That doesn't mean that a lot of those films won't get [a deal]," added Berney, in the conversation with indieWIRE. "The market is going to fix the value."

from Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=USN2144172120080122

"Teen" frenzy at Sundance

Tue Jan 22, 2008 6:24am EST

By Gregg Goldstein and Steven Zeitchik

PARK CITY, Utah (Hollywood Reporter) - With buyers exercising caution at Sundance, a documentary about the trials of being a teenager offered the most suspenseful dealmaking plotline.

Nanette Burstein's "American Teen" revolves around Indiana high school seniors. A cheerleader, hipster, jock and band geek are all featured in a film one insider dubbed "a smarter 'Laguna Beach.'"

In the wake of the blockbuster success of Fox Searchlight's "Juno," a fictional account of a resolute and colorful teenager, buyers were showing keen interest in "Teen."

Fox Searchlight, in fact, made an early play for the film Saturday, but then dropped out at the $1 million-$2 million mark. By Monday, Sony Pictures Classics was said to have the inside track, though Paramount Vantage was in the running.

Elsewhere -- save for some smaller buys like PBS' pickup of the slave-trade documentary "Traces of the Trade: Stories From the Deep North" for its "POV" series -- buyers and sellers seemed to be locked in a standoff.

A quartet of prestige films that debuted Sunday attracted interest but no immediate top-level bids.

They included the dark literary drama "Incendiary," starring Ewan McGregor; Rawson Marshall Thurber's "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh," based on the early novel by Michael Chabon; the Elle Fanning and Felicity Huffman family drama "Phoebe in Wonderland"; and Paul Schneider's quirky tale of hucksters and science "Pretty Bird."

Attention shifted to Andrew Fleming's "Hamlet 2," set for a Monday night screening, in hopes that it might jump-start the sales action. The film stars Steve Coogan as a high school drama teacher who attempts to stage a musical sequel to Shakespeare's play.

Two of the weekend's high-profile debuts appear to have been temporarily left by the wayside.

While a handful of buyers eyed "The Wackness," they were waiting for the price to drop on the coming-of-age stoner comedy. There also were predictions that Barry Levinson's Hollywood satire "What Just Happened?" would end up with a deal thanks to its all-star cast, but the chances for the most expensive film of the festival to make a record sale were dwindling.

The slow market is being attributed to high price tags and an array of films that present marketing challenges.

One other factor included renewed hopes of a resolution to the Hollywood writers strike, on the heels of the Directors Guild of America's new labor contract with the studios. The longer the strike continues, the bigger the gaps the studios need to fill in their programming slates.

While they are holding on to their wallets, a number of distributors were using the festival to launch films they are readying for release.

Fox Searchlight debuted Stephen Walker's documentary "Young at Heart," which follows a senior-citizen choir that sings rock covers, by screening it in several Utah cities and also bringing members of the chorus to Sundance.

Miramax launched "Smart People," "Sideways" producer Michael London's academia comedy-drama, following up with a glitzy dinner Sunday.

On Monday night, the Weinstein Co. took the wraps off "Where in the World Is Osama?" documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock's one-man quest to track down the terrorist leader.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter